Issue: SEQUENCE-FUNCTIONS-EXCLUDE-ARRAYS (Version 2)

[Masinter.pa@Xerox.COM]

fyi, this is the reaction from our local array expert...


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Date: 30 Apr 87 15:07 PDT
 From: Pedersen.pa
Subject: Re: [Kent M Pitman <KMP@STONY-BROOK.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>:
SEQUENCE-FUNCTIONS-EXCLUDE-ARRAYS (Version 2)]
In-reply-to: Masinter.pa's message of 30 Apr 87 14:17 PDT
To: Masinter.pa
cc: pedersen.pa

	Don't really like either proposal -- because they seem like hacks
rather than a serious approach to the problem. Also, Common Lisp is
already over-bloated, it just doesn't need creeping featurism -- but
rather a trimming down. After all -- these proposals simply relieve the
user of the very minor chore of making displaced arrays for the rare
instances where that is the natural thing to do -- no real value is
added, but there is a cost in complexity, and possibly performance.
	The truth is that if you really want to do multi-dimensioned array
manipulation, you really do want something like APL, or close to it.
Implementing an array calculus -- like APL -- is quite doable (I have
something close to that floating around), and is the right way to go for
heavy array users, but I don't think that functionality needs to be
built into the language.

					J.P.

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